SACRED or holy places are found in different
cultures, past and present, all over
the world. Such places are frequently marked or embellished by architectural
structures and art.

In most cases, it can be shown that the
sacredness of a place is linked in some way
to natural objects and features such trees, stones, water, mountains, caves, and
forms in the landscape. It can further be shown that these natural objects and forms
lie at the root of the forms and shapes employed to mark or embellish a sacred
site. For example, throughout India, hundreds of thousands of ancient trees are
focal points for worshipping community deities, or gramadevatas. These shrines
are usually places of quiet calm and reflection, providing refuge from the noisy
demands of life. Shrines may be several trees together, or a single tree with a large
platform built around it, marked with flags and banners or with its trunk dressed like
a Goddess. Hindus consider many species of trees as sacred. By far the most
common are two varieties of ficus trees: Banyan trees, known locally as vata, and
Peepul trees, known as bodhi.

These same sacred forms and shapes derived
from natural objects and features
become symbolic or emblematic of the sacred or divine. When they are articulated
in art and architecture, they become not only the 'abode' of the divine, but also
serve as a means to entice the divine either to continue to reside at a given place
or to take up residence at a new site.

Although the sacred places are often rich
in aesthetic experience, sacredness often
resides in the origins, meaning and function of the sacred objects, forms, symbols,
and shapes that compose the art and architecture of a sacred place. It is through
the art and architecture that the sacred or the divine is manifest or represented. The
philosopher Plotinus (205-270 CE) explained it this way [Enneads, IV, 3. 11]:

"Those
ancient sages who saught to secure the presence of divine beings
by the erection of shrines and statues, showed insight into the nature of the
All; they perceived that, though the Soul is everywhere traceable, its
presence will be secured all the more readily when an appropriate
receptacle is elaborated, a place especially capable of receiving some
portion or phase of it, something reproducing it, or representing it and
serving like a mirror to catch an image of it".